Will they send a tree ear to prove they’re serious?

More than two years ago, Ecuador said it would abandon plans for drilling in Yasuni National Park, one of the few pristine regions of Amazon rainforest remaining, if it was paid half of the $7 billion that it expected to earn from tapping the oilfield.

That’s sort of holding the forest for ransom. And now some countries and the UN are thinking of paying up.

I’ll admit that it’s unfair of developed countries who built their economies on exploiting any and every natural resource they could get their hands on to tell the developing world they can’t do the same. But something about this just feels … wrong.